292 STUDIES IN SEEDS AND FRUITS 



for the student, the dry dehiscing capsule belonging only to his 

 herbarium. It is futile for him to look to the structural characters of 

 a dead capsule for evidence of adaptation to the dispersal of seeds. 

 The living fruit alone should be his study. The fruit dies, and the 

 mode of liberation of its seeds depends on structural characters that 

 were developed when it was part of a living plant and could have had 

 no possible concern with the ultimate escape of the seeds from a dead 

 capsule. All that is purposive ends when a fruit has passed its prime. 



, (7) In reference to the late dehiscence of legumes at or near the 

 close of the drying process, as compared with the early dehiscence 

 of capsules which occurs at or near the commencement of the same 

 process, it is pointed out that if dehiscence takes place in a capsule in 

 a living fruit, it occurs in a legume in a dead fruit, and that all the 

 objections urged in the case of a capsule against regarding the 

 propulsive liberation of seeds as a special adaptation apply even more 

 forcibly to the legume. 



(8) The late dehiscence of legumes is then illustrated by the typical 

 cases of Vicia, Ulex^ and Ceesalpinia. 



(9) Finally, the transverse dehiscence of some legumes is briefly 

 referred to ; and the dehiscence of the polycoccous capsule of Hura 

 crepitans is described in detail, the behaviour of the opening fruit being 

 that of a number of single-seeded legumes around a central axis. 



